Flint lead crisis getting a tad overdone

Flint lead crisis getting a tad overdone: David Mastio
Before hitting the panic button, remember we are winning the war on lead poisoning
Now that the leaching of poisonous lead into the tap water of Flint, Mich., has been declared a national emergency, it might be time to dial back the panic just a notch (or two).
Flint's 8,000 children have not had their lives destroyed. 
Jesse Jackson can roll up his crime tape.
Michael Moore can go back to promoting his latest film.
Taken as a whole,  in fact, Flint's kids are better off than the previous generations of Michigander kids in at least one important way. 
Even after Flint’s disaster, the city’s children have far less lead in their blood than their parents or grandparents did at the same age.
That's of little comfort, of course, to those exposed to higher levels than they should have been because of a nearly bankrupt local government, a scientifically incompetent city water utility, indifferent Michigan environmental regulators and a bumbling federal Environmental Protection Agency.
And any lead has a long-term insidious health impact, even after it has left the blood.
But amid the furor, it's important to take a deep breath and put the exposure levels in context.
Less lead than 10 years ago
In 2005, Michigan completed the years-long process of collecting 500,000 lead blood tests from children in the state under 6. 
Back then, 26% of kids tested — that's more than one in four — had blood lead levels (5 micrograms per deciliter or greater) that would cause concern today. 
In the hardest hit parts of Flint now, only 10.6% of kids have such concerning levels of lead in their blood.
How can that be?
While drinking water management in Flint has obviously been a mess in recent years, it's a mess that comes amid one of the greatest public health and environmental triumphs in U.S. history.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data are clear.
In the late 1970s, 88% of Americans ages 1 to 5 had at least 10 micrograms per deciliter of lead in their blood, or twice as much as today's level of concern.
By the early 1990s, only 4.4% of children were exposed to so much lead.
And year by year since then, according to more than 31 million blood tests compiled by the CDC just since 2005, lead has been steadily disappearing from American kids’ blood.
Is that good enough?
No..."
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